Week Five Down...September, where did you go?!

This past week has flown by! Friday, October 2, marked 5 full weeks of Eric and I inhabiting the island. Eric has been diligently attending classes and studying hours upon end for his upcoming exams. He will face the much talked about and highly feared anatomy exam tomorrow, followed by a physiology exam on Wednesday. Eric finally took a break from the books and campus yesterday evening, allowing us to enjoy a fabulous barbecue dinner at the beach with our Aggie friends, Emily and Brandon. We then drifted to the Marriott Casino to watch our fellow Aggie football team lose to Arkansas. It was a good time anyway, and we managed to drown our sorrows at the black jack table (Eric) and I at the video poker machine (with better luck than the Ags had).

I decided to try out for the women's Ross basketball team this past Thursday. I had no idea what I was getting into! I thought it would be a time filler, good exercise, opportunity to meet people, and a few pick-up games here and there! It is definitely all of the above, but also so much more. We will have practice twice a week on the court, and conditioning practices as a team 3-4 times/week. In the middle of November, our team will fly to St. Martin (neighboring island) to engage in tournament play with other collegiate teams on their island. So essentially, we will be representing not only Ross University, but St. Kitts as well. I am really looking forward to playing with this team and will be glad when my muscles have once again become accustomed to the 'o so long ago' familiar routine of bounding up and down a court a mile a minute.

Friday night our VIP volleyball team was victorious on the sand court at Timothy beach, bringing our semester record to 1-1. It was a lot of fun! Maybe one day I will get a team picture and post it on our blog. (I have become really bad about not taking pictures here lately on my outings).

Saturday during the day, a group of my lady friends, aka...'The Real Housewives of St. Kitts', went to lunch at Port Zante, followed by some serious shopping/bonding in the port shops. (I seriously need to contact BRAVO t0 pitch our story line to them and see if it is TV worthy). Every Saturday, the port harbors a Caribbean cruise ship, and the tourist shops are busy with cruise-ship shoppers. I am loving the prices down here and Emily and I are getting pretty darn good at bargaining with the shop owners (Ross students get a discount at all the shops!). Notice my "99.9% original" Coach purse in the picture below for 12 US dollars!

Below is a picture of The Housewives after eating lunch.

L to R: Jakki (from Oregon), Me (Texas as you all know), Karen and her 10 mo. old son Isaiah (from Pennsylvania), Emily (from Texas and an Aggie! :) ), and Jen (from New York, NY).

Jakki, Emily and Jen are all teachers at the prep school on campus. Karen is actually an occupational therapist like me! (But unfortunately we cannot practice in our respective field here on the island) There is definitely a need for OT services on the island, but St. Kitt's health care system is behind on medical advances, resources, and availability of the many venues of health care professions we are blessed with back in the States.